The Last Noel & Secret Surrogate, page 2
“Straight, dammit, Frazier. Hold it straight,” her husband, David, snapped irritably.
In her mind’s eye, Skyler could see them, David on the floor, trying to wedge the tree into the stand, and Frazier, standing, trying to hold the tree straight. That was what happened when you decided “home for the holidays” meant everyone gathering in the old family house out in the country. It meant throwing everything together at the last possible moment, because everyone had to juggle their school and work schedules with their holiday vacation.
“The frigging needles are poking my eyes. This is the best I can do,” Frazier complained in what sounded suspiciously like a growl.
His tone was sure to aggravate his father, she thought.
Some people got Christmas cheer; she got David and Frazier fighting over the tree.
Where the hell had the spirit of the season gone, at least in her family? Actually, if she wanted to get philosophical, where had the spirit of the season gone in a large part of the known world? There were no real Norman Rockwell paintings. People walked by the Salvation Army volunteers without a glance; it seemed as if the only reason anyone put money in the kettle was that they were burdened by so much change that it was actually too heavy for comfort. Then they beat each other up over the latest electronic toy to hit the market.
“It’s nowhere near straight,” David roared.
“Put up your own fucking tree, then,” Frazier shouted.
“Son of a bitch...” David swore.
“...walkin’ in a winter wonderland.”
Please, God, Skyler prayed silently, don’t let my husband and my son come to blows on Christmas Eve.
“Hey, Kat, you there?”
Great, Skyler thought. Now David was getting their daughter involved.
“Yeah, Dad, I’m here. But I can’t hold that tree any straighter. And I hope Brenda didn’t hear you two yelling,” Kat said.
Skyler headed out toward the living room, ready to head off a major family disaster, and paused just out of sight in the hall.
Had she been wrong? Should she have told her son he shouldn’t bring Brenda home for the holidays? He’d turned twenty-two. He could have told her that he wasn’t coming home, in that case, and was going to spend the holidays with Brenda’s family. And then she would have been without her first-born child. Of course, that was going to happen somewhere along the line anyway; that was life. With the kids getting older, it was already hard to get the entire family together.
“Oh, so now I have to worry—in my own house—about offending the girl who came here to sleep with my son?” David complained.
David wasn’t a bad man, Skyler thought. He wasn’t even a bad father. But he had different ideas about what was proper and what wasn’t. They had been children themselves, really, when they had gotten married. She had been eighteen, and he had been nineteen. But even as desperately in love as they had been, there was no way either of them could have told their parents that they were going to live together.
Current mores might be much wiser, she reflected. Most of her generation seemed to be divorced.
“What century are you living in, Dad?” Frazier demanded. Apparently his train of thought was running alongside hers. “There’s nothing wrong with Brenda staying in my room. It’s not as if we don’t sleep together back at school. You should trust my judgment. And don’t go getting all ‘I’m so respectable, this girl better be golden.’ We’re not exactly royalty, Dad. We own a bar,” he finished dryly.
“We own a pub, a fine family place,” David snapped back irritably. “And what’s that supposed to mean, anyway? That pub is paying for college for both you and your sister.”
“I’m just saying that some people wouldn’t consider owning a bar the height of morality.”
“Morality?” David exploded. “We’ve never once been cited for underage drinking, and we’re known across the country for bringing the best in Celtic music to the States.”
“Dad, it’s all right,” Kat said soothingly. “And you...shut the hell up,” she said, and elbowed her brother in the ribs. “Both of you—play nice.”
Skyler held her breath as Frazier walked away and headed upstairs, probably to make sure his girlfriend hadn’t heard her name evoked in the family fight.
It was probably best. Her husband and son were always at each other’s throats, it seemed, while Kat was the family peacemaker, who could ease the toughest situation. She’d gone through her own period of teenage rebellion on the way to becoming an adult, and getting along with her had been hell for a while. But that was over, and now Kat was like Skyler’s miracle of optimism, beautiful and sweet. A dove of peace.
She wanted to think that she was a dove of peace herself, but she wasn’t and she knew it.
She was just a chicken. A chicken who hated harsh tones and the sounds of disagreement. Sometimes she was even a lying chicken, for the sake of keeping the peace.
But this was Christmas. She had to say something to David. He really shouldn’t be using that tone—not here, not now and not with Frazier.
Frazier just... He just wasn’t a child anymore. He didn’t always act like an adult, but that didn’t make him a child. David was far too quick to judge and to judge harshly, while she was too quick to let anything go, all for the sake of peace. There had been hundreds of times through the years when she should have stepped in, put her foot down. She’d failed. So how could she blame others now for doing what she’d always allowed them to do?
At last she stepped out of the shadows of the hallway and looked at the tree. “It’s lovely,” she said.
“It’s crooked,” David told her, his mouth set in a hard line.
“It’s fine,” she insisted softly.
“That’s what I say, Mom,” Kat said. She was twenty-two, as well, their second-born child and Frazier’s twin. She walked over to Skyler and set an arm around her mother’s shoulders. “I’ll get going on the lights.”
“I’ll get the lights up,” David said. “You can take it from there.”
Skyler looked at her daughter. Kat could still show her temper on occasion, but she could stand against her father with less friction than Frazier. Maybe the problem with David and Frazier was a testosterone thing, like in a pride of lions. There was only room for one alpha male.
But this was Christmas. Couldn’t they all get along? At least on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? Other people counted their blessings; shouldn’t they do the same? They had three beautiful, healthy children: Jamie, their youngest son, was sixteen, and then there were the twins. None of them had ever been in serious trouble—just that one prank of Jamie’s, and that should be enough for anyone, shouldn’t it?
“Mom,” Kat said, “I’ll decorate. Anyone who wants to can just pitch in.”
David was already struggling with the lights, but he paused to look at Skyler for a moment. He still had the powerful look of a young man. His hair was thick and dark, with just a few strands of what she privately felt were a very dignified gray. She had been the one to pass on the rich red hair to her children, but the emerald-gold eyes that were so bewitching on Kat had come from her father.
Where have the years gone? she wondered, looking at him. He was still a good-looking and interesting man, but it was easy to forget that sometimes. And sometimes it was easy to wonder if being married wasn’t more a habit than a commitment of the heart.
Skyler winced. She loved her family. Desperately.
Too desperately?
David cursed beneath his breath, then exploded. “They can put a man on the moon, but they can’t invent Christmas lights that don’t tangle and make you check every freaking bulb.”
“Dad, they do make lights where the whole string doesn’t go if one bulb is blown. Our lights are just old,” Kat explained patiently.
Skyler looked at her daughter, feeling a rush of emotion that threatened to become tears. She loved her children equally, but at this moment Kat seemed exceptionally precious. She was stunning, of course, with her long auburn hair. Tall and slim—though, like many young women, she was convinced she needed to take off ten pounds. Those eyes like gold-flecked emeralds. And she had an amazing head on her shoulders.
“Yeah, well...if we stayed in Boston and prepared for Christmas...” David muttered.
Not fair, she thought. He was the one who had found this place years ago and he’d fallen in love with it first. Once upon a time, they had come here often. The kids had loved to leave the city and drive the two hours out to the country. They never left the state, but they went from the sea to the mountains. And everyone loved it.
She realized why she had wanted to come here so badly. It was a way to keep her family around her. It was a way to make sure that if her son and his father got into a fight over the Christmas turkey, Frazier couldn’t just get up and drive off to a friend’s house. Was it wrong to cling so desperately to her children and her dream of family?
“Mom, need any help in the kitchen?” Kat asked. It was clearly going to be a while until the lights were up and she could start on the ornaments.
Skyler shook her head. “Actually, I’m fine. Everything is more or less ready. We’re going traditional Irish tonight—corned beef, bacon, cabbage and potatoes, and it’s all in one pot. We can eat soon. Tomorrow we’ll have turkey.”
“Want me to set the table while Dad argues with the lights?” Kat asked.
Skyler grinned. “See if you can help him argue with the lights, and I’ll set the table. We’ll just eat in the kitchen, where it’s warm and cozy.”
Kat smiled at her mother.
Skyler couldn’t have asked for a better daughter, she thought as she made her way back to the kitchen. They shared clothes and confidences, and she had learned not to worry every time her daughter drove away.
With her daughter here...
Skyler felt as if there were a chance for a Norman Rockwell Christmas after all.
Frazier came running down the stairs, followed by Brenda. They were an attractive couple, she had to admit. He was so tall, muscled without being bulky, with hair a deeper shade of red than his sister’s. And he, too, had his father’s eyes. Next to him, Brenda was tiny, delicate. And blond.
“Way too perfect,” Kat had told her mother teasingly, since she’d met Brenda first.
“You might want to turn on the TV and check the weather update,” Frazier said.
“That storm is getting worse,” Brenda added shyly.
“Really?” Skyler said, offering Brenda what she hoped was a welcoming smile. Not only was Brenda tiny and blond, her brilliant blue eyes made her look like a true little snow princess. Skyler had been relieved to learn that she was twenty-one. When she’d first met the young woman, she’d been terrified that Frazier had fallen for a teenager, but Brenda simply looked young because she was so petite. She tended to be shy, but she certainly seemed very sweet.
Okay, it would be nice if she talked a bit more to someone in the house other than Frazier, but really, what wasn’t to like about her?
* * *
David was too entangled in the lights to find the remote. Skyler saw it on a chair and flicked the TV on. A serious-looking anchorman was delivering a warning.
“We’re looking at major power outages, and despite the fact that it’s Christmas Eve, because the weather is already turning vicious, we suggest that anyone who may have medical or other difficulties in the event of a power loss get to a hospital or a shelter now. And everyone should be prepared, with candles and flashlights within reach.”
“Ah-ha!” David cried, and they all turned to stare at him.
He shrugged weakly. “Sorry. I untangled the lights.”
“Let’s get ’em up, and then let’s eat,” Skyler suggested cheerfully. “With luck we can finish before the power blows, and if it does, we can play Scrabble by candlelight or something.”
“Wretched weather,” Kat muttered, her attention turning back to the television. “Mom, Dad, why didn’t we buy a house on a Caribbean island?”
“We couldn’t afford a house on a Caribbean island,” David said, but he sounded a lot more cheerful than he had earlier. He hesitated, then said, “Frazier, will you grab that end?”
Frazier hesitated, as well, before saying, “Sure, Dad.”
“Good. You two deal with the lights, and I’ll get the food on the table,” Skyler said.
“Let’s get Mister Sixteen and Rebellious down here, too, huh?” Kat said. “He can give us a hand.”
“Good idea, and would you get Uncle Paddy, too?”
There was a short silence after she spoke. Perhaps she’d even imagined it, she thought.
David wasn’t thrilled about her uncle being there, she knew, and she was suddenly thankful that they’d both been born the children of Irish immigrants. He would never expect her to actually turn away a relative, even if he felt that Paddy was a drunk who deserved whatever he was suffering now. Which wasn’t really fair, she thought, but David was entitled to his opinion.
Often enough, Uncle Paddy was the real Irish entertainment at the pub. In his own way, of course.
Kat sprang to life, dispelling whatever awkwardness there might have been. She grinned and ran halfway up the stairs, then called, “Jamie! Jamie O’Boyle! Get your delinquent ass down here on the double. Uncle Paddy...dinner.”
“I could have yelled myself,” Skyler said.
“But you’d never have used such poetic language,” Kat said, and even David laughed.
* * *
The first thing Craig realized when he came to was that his head was killing him.
Quintin packed one hell of a wallop.
He didn’t know how long he’d been out, didn’t know how far they had come. All he knew was that even from where he lay, tossed into the backseat of their stolen vehicle, when he first cracked his eyes open it looked like the whole world had turned white.
Impossible.
He closed his eyes again, waited a long moment, then reopened them. The world was still white. It was snow, and not just snow, but fiercely blowing snow. Hell. It was a nor’easter and a mean one. A blizzard.
He ached all over and wondered if anything in his body was broken.
And what about the old man they had robbed?
His stomach tightened painfully when he caught sight of a familiar stand of trees and realized he knew exactly where they were. For a moment, memories filled his mind and drove away the pain, and then every muscle in his body tensed in an effort at self-preservation, as the car suddenly spun and came to a violent halt in a snowdrift.
“Asshole!” Quintin shouted from the front seat.
“You’re the asshole,” Scooter returned savagely. “You try driving in this shit.”
“Doesn’t matter now. We’re stuck. We’ll have to get out and walk.”
“We’re in the middle of nowhere!” Scooter protested.
“No, we’re not. There’s a house right up there,” Quintin snapped, pointing. “I can see the lights in the windows.”
“What? We’re going to drop in for Christmas dinner?” Scooter demanded angrily.
“It’s still Christmas Eve,” Quintin said. “The season of peace and goodwill toward men.”
“Fine. We’re going to crash somebody’s Christmas Eve dinner?” Scooter asked, sounding doubtful, even disbelieving, and thoroughly uneasy.
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Quintin said.
Craig’s head was still in agony. Despite that, he felt a terrible sense of dread. Inwardly, he cringed, his mind screaming.
He knew that house. He had dropped by often in a different time.
In a different life.
He remembered it so well: set on a little hill, a beautiful house, comfortable and warm, a place where a family—a real family—gathered and cooked and celebrated the holidays.
How could they have settled on that house? How could the fates be that unfair? It wasn’t even right on the road, for God’s sake; they should never even have known it was there as they drove past in the storm.
“We’ve got to get away from here. Far away,” Scooter argued.
Good thought, Craig approved silently.
“Far away?” Quintin mocked. “You’re out of your mind. Just how far do you think we can get in this weather, without a car—seeing as someone drove ours into a snowdrift? We need a place to stay. Are you insane? Can’t you see? We’re not going to get anywhere tonight.”
Scooter was silent for a moment, then said, “We shouldn’t see people tonight.”
“Don’t you mean people shouldn’t see us?” Quintin asked. He laughed. “Like it will make a difference. Whatever we have to do, we’ll do.”
In the back, eyes shut again as he pretended he was still unconscious, Craig shuddered inwardly and considered his options. Depending on how he looked at things, they went from few to nonexistent.
Sorrow ripped through him at the thought of the old man they had left behind, followed by a fresh onslaught of dread.
He prayed in silence, trying desperately to think of a way out and cursing fate for his present situation.
How the hell had he ended up here? And tonight of all nights?
* * *
“Ah, me poor bones,” Uncle Paddy moaned when Kat went up to repeat the news that dinner was ready, although he looked quite comfortable, reclining against a stack of pillows on the very nice daybed that sat near the radiator in the guest room. He had been happily watching television, and he’d apparently gotten her mother to bring him up some tea and cookies earlier. She suspected he hadn’t been in a speck of pain until she’d knocked briefly and opened the door to his room.
She stared at him, then set her hands on her hips and slipped into an echo of his accent. “Your old bones are just fine, Uncle Patrick. It’s no sympathy you’ll be getting tonight.”
